Abstract

As Gerakos and Linnainmaa (2016) point out, the Daniel and Titman (2006) decomposition of returns into tangible and intangible components can potentially be ambiguous. In particular DT’s book-return, the adjusted growth rate in book value per-share which DT use as a tangible measure of long-term performance, can be affected by a firm’s issuance and repurchase choices as well as by its profitability. This paper clarifies the relation between total book equity growth, our book-return measure, and our composite share issuance variable, and shows that our earlier conclusions are robust. We also provide out-ofsample tests.